The growth has resulted in biologic drugs becoming a major factor in growing drug plan costs, and there are no signs that this trend will slow.

Biosimilars offer a significant cost, saving as much as 50% while providing the same positive health outcomes as originator biologics. The first province to adopt biosimilar use as policy was British Columbia, where biosimilars now account for approximately 90% of biologic sales.

Since then, most provinces have followed with the lowest biosimilar adoption. This switch to biosimilars has saved Canadians an estimated $990,000,000 / 3 years 2020 to 2022. If national uptake for biosimilars had followed the trends in BC, additional savings of nearly $1.8 billion would have been attained during the same.

The Canadian healthcare system is facing challenging times. The escalating drug plan cost can be reduced with biosimilar therapy. For questions you need answered and additional information, check out our IBD resources on cdhf.ca.